Why Can’t I Experience God’s Love?

A Gun Is a Gun

To suggest that the sovereignty of God is about control is a little like saying, “God carries a gun but never uses it… or rarely uses it, or, well, you never know when He is going to use it.”

Eventually it breaks down to, “God carries a gun just in case.”

A gun is a gun. Its implication is in its design. While a gun can provide a sense of safety and security, it does so through threat, or act of violence. It can only be used for good if the person holding it is actually willing to pull the trigger.

When we use the word control to define the sovereignty of God, we put a gun in His hand.

If we insist that God’s sovereignty has something to do with control, then whenever He interacts in our lives, He is being sovereignly controlling. Actually, everything we experience, be it positive or negative, must be attributed in some way to His controlling nature.

Much of the Church believes God is in absolute control and also that God is always good. These two opposing thoughts have positioned many believers in a fractured, compromised state where their faith can become undermined by circumstances and disappointments.

A good God in control forces us to justify the Tsunami as God’s will, and then we are left with how to navigate the aftermath.

The sinner that died? Well, that was a just God acting from sovereign control.

The six-month-old who drowned? Well, that was a horrible tragedy… or was it more? Was it somehow God’s will?  You just never know…

And trust is eroded. And without trust we cannot have intimacy…

Created for Intimacy

“How do I experience God’s love?”

Because I write and speak on the always good love of our heavenly Father, that is a question I am asked often. It’s a question I believe many sons and daughters have wrestled with, particularly in the Western Church where we have had to puzzle out God’s role in the devastation of the most recent Tsunami…

Much of the church has had to navigate the disparity inherent in a theology of control. I believe this has birthed a great crisis regarding intimacy with God; we don’t know how to experience His pleasure. We have little access to His good love.

Many of us know the names of God, we know His attributes, we are intellectually certain He loves us, and yet we are not confident in His affection. While we all desire closeness with God, for many, closeness with God is far from a daily, moment by moment experience.

For many, the Christian faith is based more on an acknowledgement of God’s love than an actual encounter. But love goes beyond intellect; love is an emotive experience with a Person.

Have you ever noticed that at least two thirds of the Kingdom can be felt? “For the Kingdom of God is not a matter of what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” (6)

This scripture in Romans reveals that the Kingdom can be emotionally experienced. Joy and peace are not just theological positions in God; they are also actual felt responses to experiencing His presence.

We are designed to experience God’s presence, His closeness, His affection. He created us for relationship; not a theoretical relationship, but an experiential knowing. We were born to know and be known, to commune with God, to have an honest, true, whole, authentic, affectionate relationship with our Savior and Friend.

It’s called intimacy.

And I would like to propose that much of the church is unable to access this intimacy for one reason. We have a theology of control.

Intimacy and Control

Control can be a good concept when applied to things or situations.

Jason was in control of the car. That’s good.

But control is a broken idea when applied to relationship, it undermines intimacy.

Jason was in control of his wife, his kids, his friends, his parents, his neighbors, his subjects… That’s not good.

Intimacy can’t be experienced in a relationship where one person is controlling the other. Intimacy is only experienced where there is trust. And trust isn’t possible if one of the people in a relationship carries a gun.

You can’t have intimacy with someone you can’t trust. And control undermines trust. It is the antithesis of intimacy.

A God-in-control positions humanity in insecurity. It undermines trust in the One who we are most designed to know and trust. Why? Because a God in control is a controlling God.

A theology of sovereign control erodes our ability to trust, making intimacy with God something we are promised but never actually experience.

But Jesus powerfully modeled the way into intimacy by surrendering His very life. Jesus rejected the gun; the very idea of control.

If we aren’t convinced that God is love and His love is sovereign, perfectly good; if we think God is in control of particular areas of our lives, then we are forced to navigate those areas of our lives outside of intimacy. And it effects everything!

The Subtle Erosions of Control

The theology of sovereign control doesn’t just undermine our faith in God’s good love when facing tsunami-size problems; it subtlety erodes access to trust in our everyday life.

If He is in control, then when we stub our toe, the car needs new brakes and we don’t have the cash, the neighbor doesn’t like us, someone else gets the closer parking space, the dog escapes from the backyard and it’s getting dark and he’s not that bright; even in the subtle context of daily life, we are forced to wrestle over something that is (and should be in our minds) an absolute – the goodness of God. Ultimately our trust is compromised and intimacy is lost.

We are designed to live, move and have our being in the confidence that He is always good – that His love is sovereign. And yet our very misguided definition of His sovereignty undermines our ability to trust in His goodness. Our faith is subverted by our misunderstanding. 

But, if we are willing to step away from the flawed narrative of control and lean into a greater revelation of His love, it opens up for us an opportunity to trust His goodness in ways we have never been able to trust before.

And in this trust, we will begin to know His affection in ways we have never fully known but always longed for. And when we begin to discover His affection truly and fully, we will experience intimacy with God.

Jesus came to make us sure. Jesus revealed sovereign love and He came to give us access to intimacy.

The whole world needs to know this!

Why Can’t I Trust God’s Love?

It’s Simple…

For much of my life, I believed God’s sovereignty was defined by the simple and yet absolute idea of control. God is in control, that was how I described His sovereignty. Because of that belief, I unknowingly complicated His goodness.

God is in control, simple. And that’s where I put my faith.

God is good, true, but… well, it’s complicated. I just need to have more faith in His sovereign control, and more faith, and more faith and…

And every time I placed more faith in sovereign control, His goodness became more complicated.

It’s Simple…

My life, like yours, has had its share of sorrow, disappointment, and death; the evidence of living in this fallen broken world where sin has ravaged humanity.

For many years, even though I didn’t realize it, most of my experiences were processed though my faith in a God who was sovereignly in control. With each tragedy or disappointment, I determined to make my understanding of His sovereign control simpler and thus my faith became more complicated, fragile and brittle.

The harder I tried to trust that God was in control of my fallen circumstance, the harder it was to trust His goodness and experience intimacy with Him in the midst of the circumstance.

As the years passed, my life became increasingly marked by fear, anxiety, disappointment, realism, and such great insecurity. The more faith I placed in His sovereign control, the more His goodness became something to be experienced only after I reached heaven. Eventually, the scripture I most identified with was the first half of Proverbs 13:12 “Hope deferred makes the heart sick…”

That portion of scripture said everything about my relationship with, and faith in, God.

What I was experiencing makes sense. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for” (Heb. 11:1) and my hope was fractured by the disparity of a God who was both absolutely in control and supposed to be always good.

Thankfully, God is truly and brilliantly, always good.

Over the many years of complicated faith, of trying harder, God faithfully led me time and again into His always-good love. He brought people convinced of His goodness into my life. He introduced books and messages that confirmed His goodness. And I pursued His goodness even though it was often in tension with what I believed about His sovereignty.

Looking back, the transformative moments in my life, the moments where God met me through the Bible, prayer, or people, were always about discovering just how good and trustworthy His love is.

Looking back, I am amazed to realize that God never once asked me to believe He was in control, but He continually invited me to trust that He was good.

If you look back over your life, my guess is, you will discover the same thing…

Then, one beautiful sunny afternoon, God asked a beautifully simple question. It went something like this.

“Jason, is your faith in sovereign control, or is your faith in My always-good love?

God is good but…

If our theology is grounded in the idea that our good God is in control, then why does He allow evil, suffering and bad things? If He is in control then what do I do with tragedy and disappointment? How do I trust Him if He is the one who has caused all the pain in the first place?

Is he really “a good God who wants control of our lives and will partner with evil to get it; a good God who will compromise our freedom by manipulating evil circumstances to gain our affections; a good God who will allow love to be distorted and perverted to capitalize on our needs; a good God who is an accessory to murder, starvation, sickness, and poverty so that we would know He loves us,”

The contradiction is of epic proportions.

The idea that God’s sovereignty has anything to do with control paints Him as a needy, bi-polar tyrant and positions humanity in the most hopeless and desperate of insecurities. The premise that God is in control manipulates His nature into something contrary to His always-good love and forces us into a “try harder” gospel.

It undermines our ability to trust and it complicates our faith: “I just need to have more faith, and more faith, and more faith… but it’s never enough.

A theology of sovereign control is like building your house on sand… the higher you go, the more unstable it becomes.

I would like to humbly suggest that God is either good or He is in control, but it can’t be both. And if we determine to make it both, we invite cracks into the very foundation of our faith.

It’s Simple…

One beautiful sunny afternoon many years ago God asked, “Jason, is your faith in sovereign control or in My always good love,” On that day I chose my simple.

God is love and His love is always good. Always…

Goodness is not a theory, or a concept; it’s an absolute, a greater revelation of Jesus. It’s a truth we can either believe fully or not at all. God is fully, completely good, all the time.

In embracing this truth, I have found the core value by which everything in my life is measured.

Life is about knowing His always-good love and then knowing more; it’s about becoming sure. The gospel is simple; He loves us!

On that beautiful sunny afternoon, I determined to put my faith in simply believing His love is always good. And that simple faith began to un-complicate everything else.

It’s Simple…

I believe God is daily asking us all this same question?

“Is our faith in sovereign control or in His sovereign, always-good love?”

I know many will want to choose both. I know this because I attempted it for much of my life. But if you attempt to choose both, the goodness of God will remain complicated and this complication will continue to undermine your faith. This complication will continue to position you in the desperation of insecurity. This complication will sabotage your confidence and subvert your hope. And most devastating, this complication will compromise your trust and undermine access to intimacy.

But what if you made His good love your simple? What if you put your faith there?

Maybe you would begin to grow surer in His affection, more confident in His love. Maybe your faith would become less complicated. Maybe you would discover a greater revelation of Jesus, Sovereign Love, the Tree of Life.

The second half of Proverbs 13:12 is “…But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” That’s the part of scripture we all long to identify with, the narrative we all yearn to live, the revelation by which we want to define our relationship with God. And Jesus revealed that it’s meant to be!

“…But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.” That is the portion of scripture that I now choose to identify with. It says everything about my faith and relationship with God. I live in the ever-growing awareness of His measureless love; from desires fulfilled.

It’s Simple: God Is Good

I have decided that if I am unsure regarding something about God, it won’t be regarding His always-good love.

It’s simple: God is good. He is love and His love is perfect. Sovereign. And I have made it the compass by which I navigate life. My true north, my non-negotiable, my faith.

He. Is. Good.

And it’s my heart’s desire that we come to believe and know it so powerfully that the control narrative is changed; God is not defined by sovereign control; God is revealed through sovereign love…

This article is pulled from the pages of my book on the sovereignty of God’s love titled, God Is (Not) In Control, The Whole Story Is Better Than You Think.

Always. Good. Love.

I have prayed when Karen starts to get a migraine, “Father, heal Karen’s migraine in Jesus name.”